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Common ancestors of all humans

It has been known since Darwin's work in the 19th century that all of humanity (indeed all of life) is on one family tree. In other words, there existed in the past animals who are common ancestors of all humans now living. What this page is about is when was the most recent common ancestor of all living humans. A number of new strands of evidence indicate it was surprisingly recent, even within recorded history.

See radio interview with me on this topic on "The Connection", 2002.

Definitions

CA

Common Ancestor of all living humans - There are trillions of these, stretching from the origin of DNA-based life 4 to 3.5 billion years ago to a lot more recently - perhaps even within historical times, as we shall see. Most of these are pre-human animals, but the recent ones are human.

MRCA

Most Recent Common Ancestor of all living humans - This is a human, perhaps even within historical times, as we shall see.

Background reading

• Introduction to evolutionary biology

• Introduction to human evolution

• Speciation - There is no such thing as the "first" human.

The MRCA is human

Ways to find the MRCA

1. Genetics - These suffer from the problem of only focusing on the ancestors from whom you have inherited DNA, not all your ancestors. You can descend from someone without having inherited their DNA at a specific location on the genome, or even without having inherited their DNA at all. By focusing only on common ancestry of DNA that gets inherited at a specific location on the genome, DNA studies push back the Common Ancestor much further than the MRCA. All CA's found in genetic studies will be much older than the MRCA. Why DNA can't tell us the MRCA.

2. Archaeology - The MRCA does not imply any sort of population bottleneck at the time, or any sort of "first couple". The MRCA would have co-existed with a huge human population, many of which are ancestors of many, but not all, living people. In the future, these too will become CAs and there will be a new MRCA. Since the MRCA keeps changing, it is obvious that it does not have to exist at any important moment in the fossil record. The MRCA is a "statistical artefact", and is unlikely to be significant (or at all noticeable) in archaeology. Why Archaeology can't tell us the MRCA.

   The above 2 methods can't tell us the MRCA.

   The following 3 methods can, and they all agree. They all say the MRCA is in historical times:

3. Mathematical models - These are better for looking at whether someone actually descends from someone else, irrespective of DNA. They suggest an MRCA in historical times, as recent as c. 1200 AD, if mating is random (we know that it is not). The main limitation of mathematical models is this issue - the difficulty of modelling in any clean way the complex, non-random mating patterns caused by geography, population movement, religion and social status. To model the quirks of the history and geography of the world, or just of the West, you really need a computer simulation.

   The other thing noted by mathematical models is that not much longer before the MRCA, everyone in the population is either the ancestor of everyone alive today or the ancestor of no one alive today.

   Non-random mating would push the MRCA further back. See following.

4. Computer simulations - These can take into account all the quirks of local geography and history. These suggest that even with a high degree of non-random mating, the MRCA is still in historical times, perhaps c. 300 AD.

   If we restrict just to the West, rather than the whole world, then the MRCA comes forward: (a) because it is a smaller area, and: (b) because the West, with its constant intermarriage and migration, is closer to a random mating model than the world as a whole is, with its extreme geographical isolation like populations in Australia, the Pacific, etc. Hence the West will have a lot more recent MRCA than the world. See following.

5. History - Genealogy, like my Royal Descents page. This has the problem of only focusing on the ancestors for whom records survived, not all your ancestors. However, despite the sketchy records, it still provides strong support for the suggestions above from mathematical models and computer simulations of an MRCA in historical times. The huge number of proven descents of people from common European royal ancestry in historical times, when considered with the vastly greater number of descents that must exist but are not among the rare few that can be proven, suggest strongly that everyone, in the West at least, is descended from an MRCA in historical times. They suggest, for example, that everyone in the West is descended from Charlemagne, c. 800 AD.

Conclusion

The world

1. It would seem possible that, even with a lot of geographical separation, the MRCA of the entire world is still within historical times, 3000 BC - 1000 AD.

2. Quite likely the entire world is descended from the Ancient Egyptian royal house, c. 1600 BC.

   We pick them as an example because they left proven descents for centuries, so it seems likely their descents did not die out, and they are ancestors of some people alive today. Hence probably ancestors of all people alive today.

The interbreeding world

1. The MRCA of almost all of the world is in historical times, quite possibly in classical times, even AD.

   By "almost all" I mean over 90 percent of the world, including all of the West, almost all of Asia, and most of Africa. Only cases of extreme geographical isolation could prevent this being the whole world, leaving some aboriginal populations out of this recent family tree. If populations were truly geographically isolated for thousands of years then the MRCA of the entire world may be thousands of years ago. Though even that is not certain since there has been a certain amount of interbreeding since these populations were re-contacted in the last few hundred years. And we only need a small amount of interbreeding to get everyone descended from Europeans. That is, we just need to get them genealogically descended, even if it doesn't show in the DNA - even if the European DNA has been swamped by the rest.

2. Quite likely almost everyone in the world descends from Confucius, c. 500 BC.

   We pick him as an example because he is the proven ancestor of some people alive today. Hence probably the ancestor of all people alive today.

The West

1. The MRCA of the West is in historical times, quite possibly as recent as 1000 AD.

2. Quite likely everyone in the West descends from Charlemagne, c. 800 AD.

   We pick him as an example because he is the proven ancestor of some people alive today (for example, he is a proven ancestor of my children). Hence probably the ancestor of all people alive today. By the same reasoning, as well as from Continental/pre-Norman figures like Charlemagne, quite likely everyone in the West descends from figures like:

   • The English/Saxon/pre-Royal Cerdic, c. 500 AD.
   • The Irish/Celtic Niall of the Nine Hostages, c. 450 AD.

Discussion

Islam, Christianity and Judaism

1. Quite likely every Muslim in the world today descends from the Prophet Muhammad, c. 600 AD.

   The Prophet is the proven ancestor of some Muslims alive today, hence probably ancestor of all of them.

2. Quite likely everyone in the West descends from the Prophet Muhammad, c. 600 AD.

   There are also many known or suspected Muslim-Christian crossovers, in particular in medieval Spain. Even if specific ones, such as Zaida, dau of the Emir of Seville, are disproved, our model suggests that there will be others. With the Muslim population of medieval Spain descended from the Prophet, it is almost impossible for the Christian population to stay separate. All we need is a tiny amount of interbreeding and fairly soon all the Christian population are descended from the Prophet too, and hence most or all of the West today. And, as we just said, we even have some actual candidates such as Zaida, or Mawiyah, dau of the Caliph of Cordoba. The number of actual Muslim-Christian matings must be much higher than the few that we can prove. Religious barriers can't seriously push back the MRCA, only geographical barriers can.

   It is interesting to think that the World Trade Centre attack was almost certainly some descendants of the Prophet killing other descendants of the Prophet.

3. Quite likely almost every Jew in the world today descends from the Prophet Muhammad, c. 600 AD.

   By the same logic, there were Jews in medieval Spain, and it's hard to see them staying separate from the gradual descent of all of Muslim and Christian Spain from the Prophet. Again, all we need is a tiny amount of interbreeding for this to happen. And later the Jews of Spain were expelled, and are probably hence the ancestors of much or most of the world's Jews today.

   It is interesting to think that every Palestinian suicide bombing attack on Israel is almost certainly some descendants of the Prophet killing other descendants of the Prophet.

4. Of course ultimately the whole world will descend from the Prophet. In fact, this may already be true!

Alternative History

There would have been no Christianity, Islam, Marxism, Freudianism, communism, Nazism or Maoism. - These are belief systems, collections of beliefs accepted due to charismatic founders.

There would still have been Copernicanism, Newtonianism and Darwinism. - These are discoveries about the world, that would be made no matter what.

Science would still be here, but the religions and totalitarian systems would be different. There may have been no Holocaust. There may have been global nuclear war. Humanity might be extinct.

• The 100: A Ranking of the Most Influential Persons in History by Michael H. Hart

• alternative history

Links

• This issue has got me quite a bit of media coverage. This is listed in the blog and blog archive.

• MRCA
• Steve Olson

• [Jones, 1996, Ch.I] suggests the MRCA could be as recent as 700 BC, but provides no real support for this.

• Gary Boyd Roberts
  • Comments on Royal Descent - "probably sixty percent or more of the American people are descended from kings"
  • Roberts also says "Anthropologists claim everyone on earth is a 40th cousin" (i.e. any pair of 2 people can find at least 1 common ancestor since about 800 AD).

• Jack Lee
  • Everyone is Descended From Charlemagne

• There was a discussion about this topic in the Journal of the Northumberland and Durham FHS in 1997-98.
  • See The Ancestor Paradox by Brian Pears.
  • Basically, Brian Pears is right in his conclusions and his critics are wrong.

• Andrew Millard, Department of Archaeology, University of Durham.
  • Probability of descending from Edward III nicely illustrates that you only need one ancestor to get the Royal Descent.
  • In his calculations, the odds of any one of your ancestors in 1600 AD not descending from Edward III might be quite high (something like 0.999) but the odds of all of them not descending from Edward III would be tiny (something like 0.999¹⁰⁰⁰⁰).
  • He concludes that almost every modern English person with predominantly English ancestry descends from Edward III, and Edward III probably has something like 100 million descendants across the West.

In the future, there will be a new MRCA

"Mitochondrial Eve" is only defined relative to AD 2000. In 1000 AD there was a different Mitochondrial Eve, and in 1000 BC there was a different one still.